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NRL News
“My
Mother’s Example” Editor’s note. January’s special issue highlighted the growing role of young people in the Pro-Life Movement. Angela Franks’ article would have appeared except that she was involved in something very, very important: giving birth to her third child, Therese Faustina. We run this a month late, but I know you’ll be glad we did. I have a famous mother, at least in certain circles. She has met presidents and a pope, and written scholarly books and popular articles. Some people look up to her with something approaching awe. Others despise her for what she stands for. As president of the National Right to Life Committee, my mother, Wanda Franz, has been its public face for over 15 years. Yet she still lit-drops parking lots every election cycle, just like the rest of us. I recall, long before she was visiting the White House, how it was when she ran a struggling state pro-life organization and the newsletters would be collated and labeled on our dining-room table. What did I gain from this upbringing? Well, for one, I am a fantastic collator, and I would challenge anyone to match my labeling and stamping skills. But beyond my prowess in putting out bulk mailings, I have benefited immeasurably from being immersed in the life of a grassroots activist. When I was about 10 years old, I thought I had better be sure that my opinion about abortion was grounded in reality and not just in the force of parental opinion. (Not that I put it that way to myself, exactly.) So I decided to do a social studies fair project, which I entitled “Abortion: Right or Wrong?” In the course of researching this project, I came to a firm judgment, which persists to this day, that the “arguments” of the pro-abortion side were inevitably appeals to emotion and not grounded in fact. In contrast, the pro-life side had all the truth and rationality on its side. Unsurprisingly, my conclusion back in fourth grade was that abortion was wrong. To get a full picture of what my contribution to the social studies competition looked like, one must have the proper picture of what I looked like as a 10-year-old. I have always been, um, “differently heighted.” (You may call me “petite,” if you must.) When 10, I was quite simply short. For the state competition I wore a homemade sundress, featuring a pattern of ladybugs on a red background, with a little white jacket to match. I had a short, Dorothy Hamill haircut and big brown eyes. I stood before the judges, looking like I had stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and explained with utter seriousness the suction-curettage method of abortion and other delicate subjects. At one point, a judge asked me about my position on contraception. I replied with gravity that the topic was beyond the scope of my project. In truth, I did not know what contraception was. I was still a little shaky on the birds and the bees. But I knew about abortion! The project won first place. And so an activist was born. In high school, I got involved with National Teens for Life (NTL), first by founding the West Virginia chapter and then by serving as president of the national group. Here I learned that arguments are all well and good, but societal change does not happen only in people’s heads. It begins there, but then it must be legislated and institutionalized, in order to give lasting protection to the vulnerable. If one is lucky enough to live in a participatory democracy, then one can change laws and institutions by banding together with like-minded people and doing the tedious and difficult work of grassroots organizing. My mother’s example and my work in NTL taught me how to organize. Along the way, I became a feminist. That might sound surprising to people who assume that feminism and pro-life attitudes are incompatible—and if “feminism” means what the National Organization for Women peddles, they are! But I realized, in part through becoming friends with numerous post-abortive women, that the true good of women is never served by the violent destruction of her child. As one of my buttons read, “Pro-life, pro-woman: I’m a feminist for life!” A skeptical high-school friend said, “Feminist for life? It sounds like a prison sentence!” But for me it was intellectual liberation, to realize that abortion and the sexual regime it supports both enslave women. Most pro-life women of my generation have come to the same realization, I believe, even if they would not call themselves feminists. One event leading to this realization was another research project I took on, this time in high school. Our American history textbook featured a two-page spread on Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, in which she was essentially canonized as one of the most important liberators of women in history. I was sure that was not the whole story, and so I began to research her eugenic beliefs. The fruit of that work ripened some 15 years later, when I published a book, Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy. This just goes to show that one never knows what will happen with all those papers and projects on abortion that students do! Being a second-generation pro-life activist has frequently been stressful: there is a constant feeling of responsibility, that I too must do something or else have a really good excuse prepared for when I meet my Maker. And who just loves to lit-drop? We can all think of other things to do with our free time. But nothing else that I have done, beyond raising a family, is as significant, even if the world tells us otherwise. As Mother Teresa would say, God doesn’t call us to do great things but to do small things with great love. My mother’s pro-life work and my own have taught me the value of that little way. |